Notification Mode

The notification mode specifies how native notifications or payload push notifications to registered devices are delivered. You select the notification mode when you create an application connection.

Only native notifications – allows third party applications or EIS to deliver native notifications directly through the HTTP notification channel: BlackBerry (BES), Apple (APNS), or Android (GCM) to the device.
In this notification mode, you send notification data through the request headers. There is no body in this notification mode.
Only online/payload push – allows third party applications or EIS to deliver data payload push notifications to an online device.
In this notification mode, no headers are required, and you send the business payload through the HTTP body.
Online/payload push with native notifications – allows both payload and native notifications to be delivered to the device.
In this notification mode, no headers are required, and you send the business payload through the HTTP body.

Note: Apple and Google do not recommend payload delivery over their systems:

Data may not be delivered.
Data is delivered out of sequence.
If enabled, the actual payloads must be small.
For example, GCM makes no guarantees about delivery or order of messages. While you might use this feature to inform an instant messaging application that the user has new messages, you probably would not use it to pass actual messages.

RIM supports guaranteed delivery, including callbacks to notify SAP Mobile Server that the message was delivered or when it failed. However, this is a different message format. RIM messaging has many limitations including packet size, number of packets for a single user that BES keeps, number of packets BES keeps for all users, and so on. Therefore, BES should also only be used to send the notification, but not to send payloads.

Refer to the appropriate platform documentation (APNS, BES, or GCM) for additional information.